Overview
Lillian Taylor is obsessed with middle-class respectability. Despite the fact that her parents were enslaved, she is possessed by the delusion that her ancestors were white. But she's married to a dark-skinned man and ridicules him mercilessly for his complexion. After one bitter incident sullies Mr. Taylor’s reputation, he is forced to resign his job at a small Black college in Missouri and move his family elsewhere—the first of several relocations that strain things further.
Caught in the middle of this dysfunction is Charles, the youngest of three boys, who is left alone with their scornful mother after his brothers manage to escape. As their situation becomes ever more precarious, Charles becomes the focus of his mother’s domineering attention, resulting in an inability to fit into either black or white society. When Charles succumbs to a self-ruin borne of this struggle, it embodies the tragic failures of his fractured family.
Drawn from Himes’s own childhood and adolescence, The Third Generation is a devastating look into the ghastly effects of internalized racism and the rage that erupts from America’s failed promises.
This book title, The Third Generation (A Novel), ISBN: 9780593686683, by Chester Himes, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (February 18, 2025) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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